The Theosophopical and Anthroposophical Time scale

The Theosophical and Anthroposophical geological time-scales stand mid-way
between the vast vistas of Science and the little claustrophobic box of
Young Earth Creationism. The Theosophists
are not as bad as the Anthroposophists,
but because Blavatsky
was dependent on late 19th century science, and beacuse in the late 19th
Century (prior to the discovery of radiometric
dating) the Earth was not realised to be as ancient as it is now known
to be, their time-scale is quite a bit shorter than thhat of modern science.
The Theosophists of course justify this "esoteric" time scale, because
to do otherwise would be to question their Founder's supposed infallibity
(an infallibity I feel she herself would never have claimed).

The following chart, by Charles
Ryan, presents a comparison of the Theosophical (H.B.P., left) and
Geological time scales. R-R refers to Root Race, an important concept
in Theosophical and Anthroposophical cosmology.

The Anthroposophical
time-scale is a lot more contracted, owing to Steiner's
use of astrological cycles for dating. Anthroposophists reject the
validity of radiometric dating, since
they claim that radioactivity onlty came about after the incarnation of
Christ!

Steiner did not appear however to have been very consistent with dating.
Although in one passage
he points out that the present Earth is not even 26,000 years old, and
he states also that the expulsion of the Moon from the Earth durng the
middle of the Lemurian era (the third root race period) took place "many
thousands of years ago", elsewhere he refers to the Atlantean Era (the
one that comes after the Lemurian era and precedes and the present
age) as lasting for about a million years (Cosmic Memory).
Such inconsistencies are quite common in Steiner's teachings.

Several of Steiner's followers try to resolve the problem by pointing
out that Steiner often referred to a million years to refer to an unimaginably
long period of time. But years as a meaningful unit of time only
came about at the middle of teh Age of Artlantis when the Earth's orbit
around the sun was stabilised at its present rate. They give this
period as abut 15 or 20 thousand years ago. [Kees Zoeteman, Gaia-Sophia,
p.109]

In any case, the Anthroposophical timescale is a lot briefer than the
Scientific time scale, or even the Theosopical timescale.

Anthroposophists disagree over the precise correlation of each each
geological era with Root Race. As in Theosophy, the idea of Root
Races is central to their whole scheme of human evolution, and the Root
Races serve as their equivalent to the standard scientific idea of eras.
In seeking to formulate a universal system of knowledge, they therefore
tried to integrate the two time-scales, the geological and the occult.
One option was to begin the Precambrian with the Polarian era, another
to begin the Precambrian only after the separation of the Moon from the
Earth during the middle of the Lemurian era, arguing that this is when
the "present Earth" conditions came about. This latter option of
course gives an exceedingly truncated time scale, only a little better
than that of the Young Earth Creationists.

The following table gives six alternative Theosophical and Anthroposophical
models